Sampling Clear Sky Models using Truncated Gaussian Mixtures

Overview

This repository contains the source code that is part of the supplemental material for the EGSR 2021 Paper: Sampling Clear Sky Models using Truncated Gaussian Mixtures. The contents are:

• Python script for the fitting process
• Reference implementation as a PBRTv3 plugin for infinite area light sources.
• Pre-trained models for Preetham and Hosek sky models.
• Test renderings for various scenes

Some additional quick links

• Author version of the paper
• Video presentation (TBD) (12 min)

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Usage Instructions
• How to Cite
• Acknowledgments

Usage Instructions

The folders are:

• cpp_sky_gen_code, contains C++ source code for the generation of radiance and luminance maps for the Hosek and Preetham models. See README.txt for the compilation of the tool. A compiled executable is also provided for convenience.
• dataset, contains a subset of the dataset for the Hosek and Preetham sky models
• pbrt, containing the PBRT-v3 code for plugging in the tGMM source code
• python_fitting_code, encompassing the Python 3 source code for the fitting process and visualisation utilities
• screenshots, including all rendered images that were included in the paper plus additional ones, for reference. The file naming convention is: _. For example: barcelona-pavilion_23_4_4_gmm_mis, elevation: 23, turbidity: 4, spp: 4, Sampling method: tGMM, MIS enabled: Yes. To reduce content size, files have been converted to PNG format.

Sky Maps

To build the sky maps tool:

• Open a Visual Studio x64 command line console.
• Change directory to the cpp_sky_gen_code folder.
• Dependencies
  • TinyEXR (header only - included)
  • FreeImage (compiled, included for Windows|x64)

• Dependencies Folder

  • include folder for FreeImage and TinyEXR headers
  • lib/x64 for FreeImage.lib and FreeImage.dll
  • The FreeImage.dll needs to be manually copied to the executable folder

• Run the following command for MSVC:

    cl /O2 /MT /D "_CONSOLE" /D "_UNICODE" /D "UNICODE" SunSky.cpp SunSkyTool.cpp /I "include" /link /LIBPATH:"lib/x64" "FreeImage.lib"

  or

• Run the following command for Clang:

    * clang++.exe -O2 SunSky.cpp SunSkyTool.cpp -Iinclude -L"lib/x64" -o SunSky.exe -lFreeImage

  This generates the executable ‘SunSky.exe’

To generate sky maps and dataset, Go to cpp_sky_gen_code folder and run:

SunSky.exe -s Hosek -p    (for Hosek)
SunSky.exe -s Preetham -p (for Preetham)

Python

To run the scripts that generate the dataset and perform the fitting process, go to the python_fitting_code\skymodel folder and run main.py.

The provided functionality for the script is:

python main.py -h
usage: main.py [-h] 
               [--generateDataset input directory output_directory]
               [--best_num_gaussians min_value max_value] 
               [--fit] 
               [--plot]
               [--visualize_model model name max_GMMs_to_show]
               [--skymapdir skymap directory] 
               [--outdir output directory]
optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --generateDataset input directory output_directory, -g input directory output_directory
                        Generates the dataset for the fitting process.
  --best_num_gaussians min_value max_value, -b min_value max_value
                        Performs fitting and stores the best GMM count.
                        Expects min max arguments.
  --fit, -f             Fits the .tiff skymap files in the skymap dir
  --plot, -p            Plots the result during fitting
  --visualize_model model name max_GMMs_to_show, -v model name max_GMMs_to_show
                        Visualises up to 'max_GMMs' from the model
  --skymapdir skymap directory, -s skymap directory
                        Sky Model PDF directory. Default is
                        ../../dataset/hosek/hosek_sky_luminance
  --outdir output directory, -o output directory
                        Output directory. Default is fit

For example, to generate luminance sky maps:

python main.py --generateDataset ..\..\dataset\hosek\hosek_sky ..\..\dataset\hosek\hosek_sky_luminance

Additionally, to run the fitting process (output at fit\model.csv):

python main.py --fit --skymapdir ..\..\dataset\hosek\hosek_sky_luminance --outdir fit

PBRT

Simply replace the files in the pbrt source code directory. The important files are:

• infinite_gmm, containing the tGMM infinite light implementation
• infinite_uniform, containing the naive uniform sampling for comparison purposes

How to Cite

The license is Apache 2.0. If you use the contents of this repository for your work, please cite it as described below:

LaTeX and BibTeX example usage

In our work, we have used the source code~\cite{Vitsas_EGSR_2021}, available at ‘https://github.com/cgaueb/tgmm_sky_sampling‘.

@inproceedings{vitsas2021tgmm,
    booktitle = {Eurographics Symposium on Rendering - DL-only Track},
    editor = {Bousseau, Adrien and McGuire, Morgan},
    title = {{Sampling Clear Sky Models using Truncated Gaussian Mixtures}},
    author = {Vitsas, Nick and Vardis, Konstantinos and Papaioannou, Georgios},
    year = {2021},
    publisher = {The Eurographics Association},
    ISSN = {1727-3463},
    ISBN = {978-3-03868-157-1},
    DOI = {10.2312/sr.20211288}
}

Note: A proper bibtex will be uploaded when the paper gets published.

Acknowledgments

The provided sky map generation utility is based on a modified version of the excellent library by Andrew Willmott available here.
The breakfast room scene was downloaded from Benedikt Bitterli’s rendering resources. All remaining scenes were
obtained from the PBRT-v3 scene repository.